With this round of layoffs (to be completed by March), the Polish company is eliminating 9% of its workforce.

Adam Kiciński, CD Projekt’s CEO, said in a blog post that, like many other tech companies, they will have to resort to redundancies: “I have some news to share regarding the future shape of our teams and our game development philosophy. Those familiar with our strategy might remember that we have much going on at CD Projekt RED (CDPR). Projects like Polaris (The Witcher franchise), Orion (Cyberpunk franchise), or Hadar (new franchise) are just some of the exciting elements in the future we see for our games. Part of that strategy is an ongoing process of several deep transformations within the studio, which we consider key to making quality games on time and without crunch. After reshaping our development process and incorporating Agile methodologies, we’re now focusing on refining the shape of our teams. To meet our high expectations and ambitions to create the best role-playing games, we want to have the best people and the right teams. What we mean by that is having teams built around our projects’ needs, more agile and more effective teams. At this point, we’re sure that for CDPR to grow, we need to implement that approach consistently.

We’ve carefully assessed all teams in the company regarding their expected contribution to delivering our strategy. There’s no easy way to say this, but today we are overstaffed. We have talented people on board who are finishing their tasks, and — based on current and expected project needs — we already know we don’t have other opportunities for them in the next year. The outcome is the studio parting ways with around 100 people, roughly 9% of the team. This will not be immediate, as some employees will be let go as late as Q1 2024, but in the spirit of transparency, we’ve chosen to share the information now. We want team members to have ample time to process and adjust to the change, and we’ve also offered everyone a comprehensive severance package.

Finally, I want to address the affected CDPR team members reading this message. Although our paths will diverge professionally, I believe the relationships we have built can remain strong. I encourage you to stay connected and thank you for being invaluable to our journey. Your impact will resonate within CDPR, and we wish you nothing but success and fulfillment in the next chapter of your professional lives,” Kiciński wrote.

Recently, development on The Witcher spinoff Gwent was halted, and the “leftovers” (29 employees) were sent away. The company had previously received a lot of criticism for the crunch due to Cyberpunk 2077, launching still in a disastrous state despite the crunch…

Source: Gamesindustry